1940 Dodge's Segmented, Dual-Symmetrical Grille Design

While gathering images for my book How Cars Faced the Market, I noticed an unusual characteristic of the Dodge grille for the 1940 model year.  It was doubly-symmetrical with its four segments clearly defined.

Of course, simple geometric shapes can be symmetrical along two orthogonal axes.  A circle, for instance.  Or ovals, squares and rectangles.  Grilles with these shapes can be found -- especially the non-circle variety.

But the 1940 Dodge grille does not have a simple outline.  That, and the segment dividers are what make unique, or nearly so.

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Just for scene-setting fun, here is an advertising spread illustrated by Arthur Radebaugh (1906-1974), a guy who made many World of Tomorrow type images from the 1930s into the 1960s.

And here is what seems to be a factory photo of a '40 Dodge.

Now for that grille.  There is side-to-side symmetry if the axis of rotation is the prow of the car.  That is, the left and right sides have the same two-dimensional design.  Most automobile grilles can make this claim.  But then there is that painted metal running across the middle of the grille.  The parts above and below it (again from a two-dimensional, flattened perspective) can be pivoted on that axis bar.  This and the non-geometric outline of the grille are the unusual features.  Photo from Mecum auctions.

Five Car Brands With Similar 6-Sided Grilles

For more than 100 years it has been obvious to even casual observers that the front of an automobile is, in effect, its face.  For that reason, it has always been a major consideration when styling a car.

The "mouth" part of a car's face is its grille, or opening(s) to admit cooling air to the radiator that is normally placed at the front.  (Yes, mid / rear engine cars, air-cooled motors, and the new breed of battery-powered cars have different requirements, but for now they remain exceptions to the rule.)

A truly "functional" grille would take the shape of a rectangle, coinciding with the radiator's shape.  To style this, various bars, moldings and other ornamentation might be added.  At the other extreme would be grille openings with non-geometric outlines.  Someplace towards the first example are grilles that have a geometric basis but are more elaborate than rectangles.

Such a case would be a six-sided grille in the form of a distorted hexagon.  Both distinctive and quasi-"functional" in the sense noted above.

But a problem arises.  A car's "face" serves to identify the brand, something usually highly important from a marketing standpoint.  Therefore, it normally makes marketing sense to have a distinctive grille that potential buyers recognize.  An exception is when a lesser make borrows elements of a more prestigious brand's grille in an attempt to increase prestige, though the result can be a confirmation of cheapness.

Another possibility is that different car makers stumble on a design more or less independently, possibly because there might well be a limited number of basic grille opening shapes and one has to use what one can use.

Below are presented the faces of 2016 model year cars from five different manufacturers, each using an essentially six-sided grille opening.  Efforts were made to add touches of distinctiveness, but there remains the risk of reducing brand identity.

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2016 Audi A4
Audi is the brand with the most prestige of those shown here, but I'm not sure that the other brands were trying to copy Audi.

2016 Dodge Dart
Well, this Dodge does have the Audi "slop over the bumper" motif that is more commonly seen on some Valkswagens.

2016 Ford Fusion
Some observers think the Fusion's grille was inspired by Aston Martin.  Maybe.

2016 Hyundai Genesis G90
Maybe I'm changing my mind.  The Genesis is Hyundai's attempt at creating a luxury brand, and that grille looks a lot like an Audi's without the interlocking rings.

Even lesser Hyundais seem to be getting the six-sided grille treatment.   This is the 2016 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid.

2016 Subaru Legacy GT
This is a new grille shape for Subaru.  It's too soon to tell if the brand is going to go all-out Audi, but it also can be found on the Subaru Impreza.

DeSoto's Miller Racer-Inspired Grilles

Until about 1931, American cars faced the world with flat-faced, vertical radiator/grilles.  The Cord L29, introduced in the summer of 1929, featured a V'd grille.  By 1931, a few other brands including Chrysler and Reo did the same.  Flat fronts were largely abandoned for the 1932 model year.

Most brands opted for V'd grilles, some shallow, others bolder.  Some such grilles remained vertical and others began to lean backwards.

One marque didn't take that route.  Chrysler's DeSoto featured curved grilles clearly inspired by some of  Harry Miller's famous racing cars.

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1925 Miller Junior 8 Special
I took this photo in 2012 at the LeMay automobile museum in Tacoma.  It features the distinctive Miller radiator/grille, the theme that apparently inspired DeSoto stylists.

1932 DeSoto
The photo presumably appeared in a DeSoto advertisement.  It clearly shows the similarity to Miller grilles -- closely spaced horizontal bars combined with three vertical bars.

1932 DeSoto
Another view of DeSoto's front.

1933 DeSoto
Windshields were tilted slightly backwards on 1932 DeSotos, and for 1933 the grilles did the same.  I suppose this was in response to the growing trend to aerodynamic-inspired style.  The following model year DeSoto went whole-hog aerodynamic, the entire line having Airflow bodies.

1933 DeSoto
Another view of the 1933 DeSoto, this taken in Nice, France.

For some reason, I've never liked those DeSoto curved grilles.  A possible reason is that since nearly all other 1932-33 American cars had grilles ranging from V'd to flat, angular appearance was the norm, so DeSoto's grille seemed strange by comparison.  But a more likely reason has to do with the fact that DeSoto bodies, while new for 1932, largely carried over the boxy, angular style of the 1920s to which was added the soft, rounded grille.  The grille also pushed farther forward than most V'd grilles and looked heavy thanks to its curved surface.

In sum, it unbalanced the overall design, making for a slightly nose-heavy look.

Plymouth's Themeless Grilles 1947-1955

A while ago I wrote about Chrysler Corporation's Dodge brand and its ever-changing grille designs during the late 1940s into the mid-1950s.  Now I'll deal with grille designs for the corporation's entry-level Plymouth during that period.

With the exception of Chevrolet, American entry-level automobile brands usually didn't retain grille design themes for very long (for instance, I dealt with Ford's short-lived spinner theme here).

So it was with Plymouth during the era of American car sporting grilles comprised of thick, chromed bars assembled into bold compositions.

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1947 Plymouth advertisement
From 1946 through 1948, Plymouth styling was static because this was the period of the post - World War 2 seller's market.  The grille was essentially a set of V'd horizontal chromed strips with areas of painted body metal and openings between them.

1949 Plymouth - sales photo
The entire Chrysler Corporation line was completely restyled for the 1949 model year.  Plymouth's grille retained the horizontal chromed-bars theme, though a vertical bar was added at the center.  Missing are the bits of body metal.

1950 Plymouth - sales photo
The thinner grille bars were deleted for 1950, resulting in a "gunsight" composition that Dodge has since used for many years.

1951 Plymouth ad card
This is from the time when advertising artists were told to distort the shapes of cars to make them appear longer, lower, sleeker.  Actual 1951 Plymouths had the same tall, boxy body as seen in the previous photo; the main difference was that the nose of the hood was rounded down.  That said, this illustration clearly shows the grille elements.  Three bars are retained, but the upper two are curved down towards their edges.  Added are three widely spaced vertical "teeth" that were in keeping with the American fashion of bold grilles.  The 1951 grille was unchanged for the 1952 model year.

1953 Plymouth - Mecum Auctions photo
Chrylser brands were redesigned for 1953.  The Plymouth grille is essentially a single bar along with a chromed frame for the upper edge of the air intake.  The center third of the bar is chromed, while the surrounding segments are painted body-color.  Nine small chromed half-bangles are distributed across the length of the bar.  Altogether, a considerable change from the previous year.

1954 Plymouth
A photo I took at the LeMay museum in Tacoma.  Gone are those curious little wrap-around vertical chromed accents.  The large bar is still divided into three segments, but horizontal chromed overlays were added that wrap around to become parts of the side trim.  A smaller, all-chromed horizontal bar had been placed below the main bar.  Sales of all Chrysler Corporation marques were falling and stylists were desperately trying to help tide things over until the redesigned 1955 line was announced.  Perhaps this explains why the elements in the central part of the grille are chaotically themeless.

1955 Plymouth - sales photo
Chrysler Corporation brands came roaring back, sales-wise for 1955, along with most of the rest of the U.S. automobile industry.  The Plymouth line was tastefully styled, including the grille which was still in the American idiom of bold chromed bars.  We see that Plymouth returned to the 1953 recipe of one large horizontal bar along with an upper accent bar.  The three-element aspect is also retained, though I doubt that most people ever noticed this (I didn't until I was writing these words).  The bends of the bar and faux-teeth add interest and strike me as being more in keeping with the notion of the automobile than the tacked-on treatment of 1953.